The Gift of Friendship!

“A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.”– Elbert Hubbard

About twenty years ago, I was given an answer to prayer. It has taken me twenty years to really understand the magnitude of how special this answer to prayer has been in my life. The prayer was for lifetime friends that would be there for me through life’s greatest and hardest moments.

Almost every year the five of us, who met in college, convene together and celebrate our friendship. We leave our families and have an all-girls weekend and have fun reminiscing on old times and catch up on each of our lives through-out the past year. The amazing part is that some of us don’t really talk to each other throughout the whole year but the moment we are together, it is as if time never past. It is a bond of friendship that remains strong despite time and circumstances.

We are not the same and in fact we are all very different. Some of us have children and some of us don’t. We work outside the home and some stay at home. We each have different gifts and talents and we even think differently when it comes to politics and religion. We all have different struggles and challenges but we all realize there is no such thing as perfection in the world of women.

However, what makes our bond so unique is not that we have remained friends over so many years but that we all acknowledge that God is the foundation of our friendship. We love each other as sisters but we celebrate each other for who Christ is in us. We realize all our failures and successes can’t be truly shared without a firm commitment to the author of our lives.

My answer to my prayer is in the form of four precious friends who reflect the unity and diversity of the body of Christ. These four ladies have been a gift of friendship to me for twenty years but they have also taught me so much about myself and have helped me to grow and mature in Christ. After all, isn’t that what we as the body of Christ are to be for one another?

I am thankful for prayers answered and God who is the giver of very good gifts. The beauty of friendship and the reflection of Christ all wrapped up in one very special answered prayer.